


Our Day in Paris

by The_Muse



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 13,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5570272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Muse/pseuds/The_Muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In high school Allison Argent and Scott McCall's relationship was as any other adolescent relationship at that age. After breaking up in senior year of high school and separating for college neither have given too much thought on the other, essentially moving on with their lives; college, careers and marriage.<br/>Until one night abroad brings them back together for what is meant to be a bittersweet final time only to become something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Allison

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quaglietta_girl25](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaglietta_girl25/gifts).



 

 _Happy_ _35th_ _birthday!_ The words gleam up at Allison from the laminated card that had accompanied the freesia delivered the her cubicle. Isaac, she told herself with a sigh, was gaining some points for trying but after twelve years of marriage the man still couldn't quite remember his wife's favorite flower.

She tucks the card into the breast pocket of her blazer and continues her work deciding that if Isaac couldn't be bothered to remember that Allison abhorred freesia that she might as well lose all consideration she had for him at the moment and just stay late to finish her article.

As it was, Lydia was already riding her ass about the deadline anyway so a bit of childish theatrics against her husband could be excused in order for work.

Jennifer Blake, an older woman who decided early on that Allison could be the only coworker that could be counted upon for a moments gossip and lunch, popped in to the cubicle and deposited a small parcel before eyeing the flowers in confusion.

"Don't those things make you sneeze?" She pointed to the flowers in some what opened confusion. 

Take it for Allison's work friend of only three years to remember that tid bit.

"My darling husband forgets." Allison says with a light tone that doesn't belittle her agitation. "Are these from _Boyd's_? They are, aren't they?" She takes the parcel and grins at the small hard candies. 

"Of course." Jennifer crosses her arms with a grin. "Went in this morning after my jog and just knew you'd appreciate them more than a gift."

"You know, gorging yourself on candy and pastries totally defeats the purpose of getting up at 5AM to jog." Allison pops a candy into her mouth and swoons.

"Har har. Get on my case but you know, if I didnt cheat after my morning jogs so much you wouldn't ever get these because for some odd reason you won't step into _Boyd's_ yourself."

Allison closes her parcel and turns in her desk chair to glare at her computer. 

"He's Isaac's best friend." She says simply. "And not exactly my biggest fan."

"But you two worked it out. Isaac's back home. I don't see why you've been excommunicated from a bakery."

"And the flower shop downtown. His wife is worse."

Jennifer rolls her eyes and tells her that Isaac's friends are ridiculous before excusing herself to go back to her own floor in advertising.

It isn't that they're being unreasonably cruel about the separation, actually Erica's comments stopped crossing the line after Allison had taken Isaac back and Boyd's judgmental silence ceased feeling oppressive.

But the awkwardness still remained.

Allison's marriage has had ups and downs, it wasn't uncommon for with Isaac or herself to feel annoyed with one another or to feel trapped. The amount of times they fought may have escalated in the recent years but that didn't mean they didn't love each other. 

They've been together for fourteen years, meeting one dreary night in the mess hall their second year of college, Allison and Isaac had been inseparable. Their relationship had begun before either of them had realized what was happening and two years later they were married.

Sometimes Allison missed their cramped first apartment, the old rickety garage sale furniture they'd bought within the first year of getting married. Back then it had been worth fighting with her parents, who disproved of her marrying while still in school. Why should her age matter? She was in love. 

Twelve years later, her birthday seemingly ruined by a bouquet of flowers she hates from a husband who can't remember simple things such as allergy inducing flora and Allison seriously wishes she would have listened to her parents.

Not that she doesn't love Isaac, of course she does. It's just the reason for the annoyances, the thing the wrong flowers represent.

Like the babies Isaac refused to discuss having.

"Can't you just be happy with it being only us for now?"

"It's been just us for long enough."

That's how their fighting started approximately six years ago. Allison had, at the time conceaded to his point. Yes, they had been together for years, but at the time they had only been married for a few years by that time and Isaac wanted for them both to be financially stable.

By year ten of their marriage, of hinting on and off, Allison had finally decided to have the actual conversation again.

"I've just made partner, Allison. I don't think right now is a good time for a baby."

Pushing and being passive aggressive made things worse until finally Isaac came out with the truth. He didn't want children, biologically or adopted.

He might have mentioned it, Allison would have been crushed either way but at least she would never have had her hopes built up over time and when Allison did get pregnant earlier in the year she might have been prepared for the way Isaac reacted.

Of course she didn't mean to blame him for the miscarriage, she didn't mean to throw him out of the house when he attempted to sooth her by saying that maybe it was a sign.

Isaac's feelings in regards to children stemed from an abusive childhood and an innate fear that history may repeat itself, Allison understood that. 

It didn't make his sad relief forgivable.

It's later in the day when Lydia calls Allison into her office to discuss a business trip that she finally stops thinking about going home to a nervous husband who was probably waiting terrified that his wife, who was never late, wasn't home yet.

"Paris?" Allison asks slowly again for what feels like the thousandth time since Lydia had informed her. "You want me to go to _Paris?_ "

The red head regarded her with thinly veiled annoyance at having to repeat herself.

"Yes Allison." She waved a hand at the opened door and Allison promptly shut it. "You're the best I've got."

"You're full of it." Allison said. "McKay's the best you got."

"So? What's wrong with being a close second? I think you deserve it." Lydia looked a little distantly before her cold mask set, her mouth went grim. "Freesia? Really?"

"Does everyone know?"

"Sweetie, we've been friends since high school. I would hope that I know you hate freesia." The red head leans back in her chair and smiles.

 


	2. Allison

 

Allison lands in Paris feeling like death warmed over. The clustered Charles de Gaulle Airport makes Allison's insides clench and its only a moment before she takes a deep calming breath.

Isaac hadn't been exactly happy about her last minute business trip and less so when Allison suggested that he take time off to go with her. A week in Paris, she had said, might do them good.

Isaac suggested that Allison take the trip alone.

_"Maybe the space will be good for us."_

She hadn't fought back, didn't mention the months of separation between them was enough already.

Certainly, she wasn't going to beg him to go with her. It took boarding the plane for her to realize that he'd actually wanted her to be more persistent.

There was relief when Isaac hadn't made the attempt to follow her. Allison realized that she didn't exactly want her husband around.

It takes a while to get her bags and Allison is almost lost amidst the throngs of mostly tourists who all seem to linger near the bags, a group of them obviously together if the excited chittering was anything to go by.

One woman, a tiny old thing with thick red curly hair and long red manicured nails politely asks for her to grab her bag with the thickest southern accent Allison has ever heard.

"Your first time here?" The woman asks.

"That obvious?"

"You look overwhelmed."

Birdy Tithridge, the woman introduces herself along with her sisters Charlottee, Anna and Kathleen. Widows vacationing for the first time since their husbands died. 

"Except me," Birdy saysfor ugly. "I'm celebrating my divorce." She says proudly much to the annoyance of her sister's.

Allison laughs and wonders how Lydia might feel if Allison compared them.

"So what is it you lookin' for?"

Allison says work though it's pretty obvious after viewing her schedule that really, she might have been able to interview the designer over the phone...

"Your boss sounds awfully nice to send you on vacation."

Allison agrees though she might have done without the runaround. But she understood. After all had it been Lydia trying to salvage a crumbling marriage and Allison were in a position to give her something close to peace?

"Sounds like a sweet gal."

* * *

 

His hair is still a crows nest and while the baby fat had disapated from his face Allison is still taken aback by Stiles Stilinski. She certainly hadn't expected to see Stiles in the airport waiting for her with a sign that spelled her first and maiden name in chicken scratch. 

His smile is as infectious as ever and Allison feels like a girl in high school all over again, like any moment she would hear the bell ringing over head. 

It's been a while he says and Allison allows for him to take her bags and lead her toward the exit, his car is small and sat idle, waiting. Stiles explains that the new up and coming designer is his sister in law.

"Or soon to beat least. The wedding is in two days."

She asks Stiles about the wedding and he tells her in the most excited voice that he's getting married. It's a strange thought, though not as shocking if you considered their age. 

"He's a lamb, really." Stiles says as he eases the car into traffic, a small grin on his face. "You remember Derek Hale?"

"He's hard to forget." And he is. Derek had graduated the year above them. A quiet bespectacled boy with hands and feel too big for his limbs and braces, Derek had mostly kept to himself and off of everyone's radar much to Stiles relief.

Until coming back from spring break. He'd grown into his hands and feet, gained muscle and lost his glasses. 

"So you finally baggged him?"

"Finally? Allison, Derek and I have been together since the summer after high school." Stiles says a little bothered by her surprise before he shrugs. "Wait, you wouldn't have known that. How long have you and Lydia been back in contact?"

"A little over five years." 

"Really? And she didn't mention anything?"

Lydia hired Allison after a rather awkward interview that had Allison internally panicked. Did Lydia remember they were close in high school? Did she remember the fight that led to Allison rescinding her invitation? 

But Lydia had acted like she remembered nothing and had hired Allison just like that. It wasn't until six months in that Allison was called into Lydia's office.

_"I'm not going to apologize for what I said. It was a mistake getting married to a guy you said you loved enough. Enough is not the basis a healthy marriage should be built on. That said. I missed you."_

And that was that but, Lydia never mentioned their old friends. Lydia never mentioned that Stiles and Derek had been together for fifteen years and getting married.

"How's Scott?" The question is out before she's realized its come out of her mouth. Where had that come from?

But Stiles' profile visibly brightens up at the mention of Scott.

"He's doing pretty good, actually. He flew out last week with my dad and Penny. Its been," Stiles bites his lip. "pretty rough on us, you know."

"What happened?"

Sheriff Stilinski- Dean since his retirement, and Scott's mother had gotten married at some point during the boys junior year of college. Penny was born in the same year and for the longest time everything was great until a year ago.

"How long was she sick?" 

"Six months. That's how fast it was."

Stiles lived in France but made it back as often as he could manage but she Melisa died? Scott was there for Dean and Penny more than Stiles could be.

"And Kira. That woman is a God send."

"Kira?"

"Scott's wife."

Scott met Kira Yukimura eight years ago, the morning he and his mother had dropped off a five year old Penny for her first day of kindergarten. Kira was her teacher.

"Scott's married?" It comes out in a whisper but Stiles hears her and answers in affirmative. "This isn't the hotel?" Allison looks around confused at the somewhat gritty residential neighborhood.

"You're not staying in some hotel. This is my place."


	3. Scott

 

(One week prior)

Kira apologizes again and it makes Scott feel like an even bigger jackass at picking a fight. Of course it wasn't everyday that his best friend and brother was getting married and Scott might have overreacted over the fact that Kira couldn't go to the wedding.

"I understand Scott. I really do but my dad is getting worse and mom can't handle him on her own, not for two weeks at least."

Kira's father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His condition was rapidly deteriorating, his moments of lucidity getting fewer and fewer. Kira spent as much time as she could with her parents and Scott loved her for it, he really do.

But sometimes he just wanted his wife back.

"Did you pack everything?" Kira fiddles at the doorway, hair in a messy bun dressed in sweats. "Not too many socks this time? Did you pack any underwear?"

"That was one time." Scott cracks a smile, eyes Kira sideways. "And if I remember correctly I didn't exactly need underwear on our honeymoon."

"I still can't remember why we bothered to pack clothes at all now that I think about it." Kira, giddy for the first time in days decides to inspect his bag. "When everything gets settled we should go back there. Wasn't it great?"

It was great. Strange to find out that The small bed and breakfast happend to be located in some sort of mediums paradise but the time spent there had been everything they'd wanted and promises were made to go back.

Well, Kira's father was diagnosed and then down the line Scott's mother got sick. The veterinary clinic in town was closed so they'd had to move to the town over. The bed and breakfast in that quaint little town in Florida was forgotten.

But that's life. You can hope and pray that everything is going to be the way you hoped it would be but most times there's a curve ball and you have to make due.

There are kisses at the airport and Kira's best wishes for Stiles and Derek before Scott is left to wait for boarding. He sits in an approved waiting area with a small coffee and a bacon and eggs sandwich thinking about the wedding and the next two weeks of free time in Paris.

But Cora was there and insisted on using Scott as a model and Laura, the eldest Hale child was overcome by joy at the thought of Scott being around. Good company.

When Melissa was sick, when she died Laura was there with them because Stiles and Derek couldn't be as much as they wanted to. When Derek called and announced that Stiles had finally proposed, Laura made the decision to move to France to be close to family. Their mother was dead going on twelve years and their father having run off when Cora was five, there wasn't exactly a lot to keep Laura in the states.

An uncle stuck in a coma? No, nothing.

Scott was excited to see Laura and Cora, excited beyond reason to see Stiles finally married. If only Kira could be there too.

But family came first and always.

* * *

 

Cora's face greets Scott as soon as he's off the plane, legs wobbly, neck stiff. She doesn't smile but that isn't so uncommon she's never been one to smile. He'd be suspicious if she suddenly became over friendly. 

Her hair is cut fashionably short, her hooded eyes searching. She says a Curt hello and leads him to her car, her driver immediately taking his bags and going for the trunk. Scott might have told him that he could get his own bags but as tired as he was Scott allowed for it and when he was situated in the back he groaned. Tired.

"I hate long flights."

"You'll get used to it."

They don't really talk as Cora is, a lot like Derek, a quiet person. She answers questions about things like the wedding and about the clothes she will undoubtedly coral him into wearing. 

"Kira wanted to be here." Scott says it like an excuse. It's not. Kira really wished she could be.

"Her father?" Cora's eyes soften. 

"Worse."

Scott doesn't want to talk about Kira's family and how much worse its gotten. He's so tired of trying to explain to Kira and her mother that the best thing would be is to move him to an impatient care facility where he can be monitored and cared for.

The argument after that was a bad one. Draining. Things had been harder after that, the stress of his father in law, Noshiko constantly on edge and Kira's insistence that they could handle this...

The fight about Kira not willing to take some time off for the wedding was like icing on the cake. Everything was tentatively getting better but it wasn't alright.

"How's the happy couple?"

"Annoyingly sappy. Derek's insistent need to be away from Stiles before the wedding is getting on my nerves."

"Oh?" 

"If I have to hear Stiles serenade my brother one more time..."

"Laura says that Stiles food has been touched with a depressed after taste."

"World class chef whose food casn drive you into a depressed induced coma. It's almost like masgic. You'd think with the way he's carrying on that Derek died or something."

 "Glad to hear that Stiles hasn't lost his dramatic edge."

"And to think this is the idiot my brother has been panting over since junior high? My brother has terrible tastes."

Scott shoots Kira a quick text with a laugh.

_"Landed safely. With Cora who says Stiles is being an idiot."_

_"What else is new? Kidding!"_ She replied. _"Love you."_

Scott leans back in his seat and suts his eyes.

He doesn't text back.

 

 


	4. Eyes meet across a crowded sidewalk

 

Lydia was less than impressed when all Allison could say over the phone was that there was nothing to say about Paris apart from all the cliches used to describe it before.

Tone overwrought with bits of confusion and a sudden shyness at the thought of seeing Scott again, Allison made an attempt to be as cool as was possible to appear as immoveable as a mountain or in this very case it to seem bored.

"You're terrible at deflection." Lydia had said tersely over the line, petulant as always at having her fun ruined. "I'm assuming that you haven't already seen Scott?"

"I don't see what Scott matters to the conversation at all, Lydia. We're both married and I can't even remember what it was we said to each other the last time we were together."

"Liar. You, my friend, have the memory of an elephant."

"Oh?"

"You never forget."

It's the day before the wedding when Allison sees him and apart from the beard he hasn't much changed. Of course it wasn't to say that something inside of her didn't twist at the familiarity.

He was just as handsome as ever and from the distance of a few feet, seperated by throngs of strangers walking along the bustling sidewalk, she was hard pressed to see anything about Scott that had changed be it for the good or bad.

Of course he was staying with Laura and Cora, of course she'd made it her mission to avoid Scott at all costs by scheduling her appointments with Cora when she knew he wouldn't be at her apartment. Prepared to eventually get her interview after the wedding and appear as professional as was possible under the conditions.

Allison should have realized that Paris would not have been large enough to keep her from seeing Scott until she had to and why she was so preoccupied with this could be summed up to one reason.

To preserve the memory of the last innocent contact she had ever had with a man. Her girlhood. Scott represented past possibilities, of first times and newness. Allison would have preferred to never see Scott again if it meant never thinking about that point in her past.

Scott see's her, too. Of course he spots her the moment she decides to slink off, breaking through the mass of people just to get to her like some sort of overexcited puppy.

She holds back a snort. Some things _never_ change.

Her hand comes out and they shake awkwardly, warmth seeping between their linked hands and Allison reasses her earlier observation.

Scott had changed quite a bit. He's grown into his shoulders and only the corners of his eyes are lined, like a plethora of years worth of smiling through them have at last caught up with him. His black hair is cut neatly and appears almost thicker, glossy in a way that speaks of expensive product. His wife's doing, no doubt.

Allison regrets not putting more thought into her own sloppy appearance, awkwardly grinning up at Scott, scrambling for something else to say or at the very least a proper excuse to leave.

Scott, as always, blows her away with his earnestness.

"You look _incredible_."

She believes Scott because he was always incapable of lying even if Allison wants to offer to take him for an impromptu eye exam.

She's in old I'll fitting jeans, a threadbare jumper and doesn't remember putting on any make up, a far cry from looking incredible, like Scott in his fitted trousers, shirt and loafers.

She offers him the eye exam anyway and it seems to be the right thing to say because he laughs.

"Still funny."

"Well you never were hard to get a laugh out of." She lets Scott take her by the elbow and lead her in the direction of a small cafe. "Stiles mentioned that you were here a week already."

"Cora's decided to use me for a living mannequin." He says bashfully. "She mentioned that I was perfectly proportioned for the line she was making."

"Why is it so embarrassing? You're blushing."

Scott doesn't answer until they're both seated toward the back. There are a few other patrons inside ranging in age, a few she recognized from her touring other various landmarks. A tour guide that had been too enthusiastically into her job.

"Horsehung."

"What?"

"Her line is called _Horsehung_." Scott waves over a bubbly blonde waitress. "That name alone is worth being embarrassed about."

"I'm surprised that you don't think it's hilarious." Allison really is surprised. Scott, the one she had known would have still been giggling about it. 

"My sense of humor has kind of changed." His lips form a thin lone. "I mean, it is hilarious, don't get me wrong it's just that the thought of being photographed in tight clothes named after the hugely well endowed kind of feels degrading." Scott says in a serious tone, holds eye contact and Allison can see that he's changed, that he's matured.

Until laughter bubbles out of him and she sees the bit of old Scott that she knew.

"You faker!" She balls up and throws her napkin.

"Your face!" He catches it deftly and smooths it out with a grin. "Ive been telling everyone."

"You weren't embarrassed at all."

"Why would I be? It's hilarious."

The waitress is polite enough to not show annoyance at Scott and takes their orders professionaly. Even if it takes a bit to distinguish Scott's messy French pronunciation over his giggling.

Scott hasn't actually changed that much.


	5. Remembrance

 

The first time Allison had sex is a memory filled with a dream like haziness, a softer quality to an awkward first encounter that went on and on and didn't stop until she'd broken up with Scott. Le Vésinet, a beautiful suburb, surrounds Allison in a warm haze and slowly she realises that she hasn't heard a word of whatever it is Scott is saying.

"What was that?"

"I asked you about your husband. Good guy?"

"The best."

Scott's shoulder brushes her, warm and solid and so achingly familiar. He's the same person he was fifteen years ago and yet when Allison looks at him there is something so terrible about what those silent years have done to his features.

When he asks her about what Isaac does for a living she can even detect a change in his voice, the light quality gone leaving a somewhat deeper timbre in its wake.

"He's a lawyer." Allison answers, grins proudly at Scott's low whistle. "Made partner a few years ago. We're very proud."

"I would say so."

He nods looking incredibly impressed.

Scott's father was a lawyer, most McCall's were lawyers barring Scott's grandfather, who remained a deputy until his retirement, Scott's uncle Drew who fell off the grid halfway through his law degree years before Allison had ever been in the picture, and Scott himself who preferred animals to courtrooms.

Scott understood the difficulty that went into attaining a law degree had heard horror stories about passing and failing the bar.

"He's pretty young to make partner so he has to be good. Congratulations." The smile is genuine and infectious.

"Your wife's a kindergarten teacher." Allison says matter of factly and Scott smiles widely, a perfect picture of pride on his face.

"She's taking some time off but yeah. It's how we met but I figure Stiles has already told you. "

Allison nods.

"It's a very sweet story," Allison grins. "Filled with longing sighs and stuttering. Or did Stiles get it wrong?"

"No he had it right."

"So you really did take over for your parents by dropping off and picking up your sister?"

"Yeah, Kira actually thought I was Penny's dad and assumed I was married. To my mother."

They have a good long laugh about it. Apparently Kira had taken great offence at being hit on by a students father especially when his wife happened to be in the near vicinity.

"What did your mom say?"

"After correcting Kira and telling her that I wasn't her husband? She thanked her for thinking she was young enough to land a twenty three year old."

They continue to talk about their lives, reveling in the others happiness and congratulating eachother, bumbling along the sidewalk, knocking into each others sides and laughing.

It's a good day that begins to bleed into night, the sun setting beautifully in the jagged distance. 

They don't notice.

How many hours passed, Allison couldn't exactly tell. In between catching up with one another and laughing at the awkwardness of seeing eachother again time had seemed to escape. By the time they'd rounded back to the small strip of shops where they'd earlier seen each other it was well passed midnight and, of course, officially the day of the wedding.

"It's two in the morning." Allison noted with surprise as she stared at the screen of her phone. 

"I gotta get back to the house. Derek's probably panicking in silence and Laura's probably berating him."

"What about Cora?"

"She's probably sleeping."

There's an awkward moment where neither of them know how to say good bye. Allison wonders if a hug is too much or a handshake too formal. Maybe a pat to the shoulder?

Scott kisses her cheek, beard scruffy and rough against the softness of her cheek, so different than the smoothness of fifteen years ago, his larger and calloused hands grasping Allison by the elbows, also different.

"It was really good to see you." Scott says so earnestly.

She nodds, dumbly unable to speak. This person is someone she doesn't know at all and when she thinks about that first awkward time she knows how different Scott really is. He wouldn't fumble or blush his way through it. This is a man comfortable in his own skin.

"Goodnight Scott." She says like a goodbye.

"Later." 

Allison watches his broad back as he leaves. She doesn't recognize this man at all.

 


	6. The Wedding

 

There is a procession of flowers and silk, beautifully dressed bridesmaids or in this case groomsmaids and groomsmen who matched so perfectly the seemed artificial. The Hale cousins, groomsmen who stood tall and proudly in their smart suits and ties, the same silk red that matched the Stilinski cousins, the bridesmaids, dresses.

Scott seemed eerily detached from the Hale's, not matching the broadness of their shoulders or musculature that had to have been an inherited gene, but his wide unfailing grin made him more appealing, at least Allison figured.

She might have been biased of course.

Derek and Stiles didn't seem to register their audience and Allison sighed remembering her own wedding the nervousness that had seemed to settle into her bones melting away to nothing the moment her eyes had connected with Isaac's.

That sort of happiness, that love?

Allison could imagine that neither men would remember what the other wore exactly, might forget how the small church was decorated or how terrified they'd been. But this moment, she knew, they wouldn't forget. Reaching toward one another. At last.

Of course her eyes tear up, she feels a stinging behind her eyes. When was the last time Isaac had looked at her like she was the answer to every question, like the best thing he could ever hope to see? When had _she_?

 _I can't remember_ , she thinks and knows that these two men, staring happily and lovingly at eachother will never go a day without it. They'll fight and hate eachother but love will never come in short supply, they will stubbornly stick together and be blessidly happy.

That's how it's supposed to be.

She can feel Scott glance at her, a quick cursory look before turning back to a misty eyed Derek and mischievous Stiles who will never let his husband live it down.

It's a beautiful ceremony, the kiss is long, languid and highly inappropriate for a church. The Hale's are scandalized while the Stilinski's hoot and holler their congratulations.

It's perfect and Allison finds that she is not the only one crying.

* * *

 

Derek isn't the same Derek she knew from highschool. He's bigger, happier and with gray inching its way through the jet black at his temples. Surrounded by his cousins, who all bear a striking resemblance he glows, happily.

Allison has never been more envious of someone in her entire life. It gets worse when she runs into Stiles who laughs and glows brightly, taking her in his arms and spinning.

 _I'm the luckiest son of a bitch in the world_ he exclaims, and then proceeds to regal her and his cousins, Sam and Dean, with the story of how he proposed.

He did it bungee jumping. Allison can't even be surprised.

She makes her getaway when Stiles shouts for Derek to join him, ducking behind the incredibly tall Sam as she makes a break for the veranda.

The reception is held in a beautiful building far from the small church the wedding had taken place in. The view is breathtaking, the city is illuminated, alive.

Allison is angry that Isaac had told her he wouldn't come. She feels lonely in her beautiful borrowed dress, Cora having already prepared the garment because Lydia had asked.

"He's a jackass, that husband of yours." Cora had said as she pushed Allison in the direction of her bedroom to change. "I would have had a suit ready for him he didn't need to hang up on me."

Isaac had known on Allison's birthday that she would be in Paris going to this wedding.

He was a jackass.

"You ducked out in the nick of time." Scott walks forward, stops beside her with a warm smile. His tie is undone, suit jacket in one hand, white shirt unbuttoned and wrinkled. "You missed it. He tried to dip Derek and almost dropped him. It was hilarious."

"I'm sure." She clears her throat and hopes her eyes aren't glittering with tears. "He hasn't seemed to change all that much."

Scott doesn't stand silently at her side like she had hoped, doesn't walk back into the reception to politely pretend he didn't notice her crying. What Scott does is warmly and firmly grasp the back of her neck and bringing her towards him in a hug.

"Cora told me." He said. "Maybe he had work?"

"He knew and didn't." She shakes her head. "He didn't _want_ to be here."

_With me._

Scott's suit jacket is placed on her shoulders, impossibly warm and she allows for Scott to pull her into a hug, feels him kiss the top of her had. "You're a knock out in thar dress so it's his loss."

"I'm glad it looks good. I wasn't sure about the gold color."

"Champagne." Scott corrects. "Kira should have been here."

"I know. I'm sorry."

They stand together for a long time, soothed by the jovial music, the view and by eachother.

 


	7. The Wedding (continued)

 

Allison's wedding could hardly be called a wedding. Her dress was an older number from her mother and Isaac had been dressed too casually to be called a groom.

Her parents had refused to acknowledge the relationship as a serious one so Allison had to make due with Isaac's friends and her aunt Kate. 

It was small, private and now that she thought about it years later and too old for blind romanticism, it was also depressing.

Maybe it was because Derek and Stiles wedding was going on just inside, maybe it's was because Derek's sister's and Stiles father stood proudly during the procession along with the numerous other Hale's and Stilinski's.

It all comes down to the moment before the I do when their eyes met and-

"I can't believe it. They're finally married."

"Please...Scott you're saying it like you never thought it was going to happen."

"It took fifteen years for Stiles to wear Derek down. Trust me and my obvious disbelief that this actually happened."

It's a cold comfort to have Scott beside her, arm around her shoulder, her head leaning toward him reminiscent of years before when they were two teenagers who thought that they were in forever love.

"Your wedding," Allison curiously begins. "How was it?"

Scott and Kira were married on the beach in Florida. Kira's grandfather had paid for the entire thing and the weather was terribly hot and humid, their fine clothes sticking their skin. 

And as Florida is known for doing year round no matter the season, it rained.

"Her hair was so frizzy." Scott laughs a little, arm tightening around Allison. "Just five minutes of light rain and we were both a mess. The wind had picked up and we were sand covered but she was beautiful."

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Allison used to spend her nights bitterly awake during her separation trying to see where she had gone wrong in her marriage, nights where her thoughts drifted off and she remembered Scott, Stiles and Lydia in high school. 

Back _thens_ were an easy way to feel better, to think of better times when your biggest mistake had all to do with wearing the wrong thing or forgetting homework.

"What about you?" Scott nudges her and Allison finally looks up.

"Justice of the peace." She says in a sigh. "My parents weren't exactly glad I was getting married so young so asking them to help for the wedding seemed useless."

Her parents hadn't exactly been thrilled to hear the news about their daughters wedding through the grapevine but they'd never explicitly stated that she had disappointed them. Her father had told Allison that she had made her choice and should be happy, after all, she was a grown woman capable of making her own decisions.

Allison's mother said nothing while her father was in the room, waited till he'd gone out with aunt Kate for a congratulatory drink and had given Allison such a cold look that she'd felt her knees weaken.

 _'If this boy is who you want to spend your life with then I can be happy,'_ Victoria Argent had peered at Allison over the rim of her glass. 'If _I thought you had actually thought this through. I suppose it's my job to allow for you to make your_ own _mistakes.'_

"She said that?" Scott asked disbelieving. He blew out a low whistle. "No, wait. Your mother was always terrifying, of course she said that."

 "She is not!"

The teasing him s familiar as they give jibe after jibe. It was always easy between them and Allison wishes that they could have remained friends after highschool, if nothing else.

"You want to get back inside?"

Allison lets Scott lead her back to the reception, his large calloused hand warm and comforting on her lower back.


	8. Interlude

 

One year

 

Isaac smiles serenely across the table, candle light makes his hair radiantly golden and the small lines around his eyes are pleasant. Allison is glad that Isaac is back to being himself again, loose around his broad shoulders almost carefree.

He doesn't mention the fact that he had known that Allison was being tricked into a Paris vacation and an old friend's wedding. It seemed like the time apart was transformative, somehow enlightening.

It had been. Allison had regained old friendships, had suddenly loosened herself, was less uptight and angry and now she felt like the old Allison again.

It was nice.

"Happy anniversary baby."

Their glasses clink together, eyes sparkling.

"Happy anniversary."

* * *

 

Stiles sends a mass text of a distorted sonogram and its surprises Allison that she doesn't suddenly feel overwhelmed with dread and old pain. She's happy for Stiles and Derek, takes an early break to call the happy expectant couple through Lydia's office phone.

"You're lucky that your boss is so level headed." She hears the teasing tone in Lydia's voice. 

"More like good thing I've known her since highschool. Lots of embarrassing leverage."

Cora is the happy surrogate who'd suggested it all to begin with. Said that because she was never planning to settle down or ever have children of her own that she wouldn't mind renting out her uterus.

Scott texts later at night, his excitement clear over text. He'll be an uncle, he texts and immediately after admits that he's jealous.

Allison calls him.

"Jealous?"

"Kira wants to wait."

"That's a shame. You'd be a great dad."

Allison's given up on having children. She's stopped hoping that Isaac will suddenly want them, unwilling to chance another miscarriage. 

"Who are you talking to?" Isaac, bleary eyed with sleep, walks into the living room and settles on the sofa beside her. She ruffles his messy bed head as she wishes Scott goodnight.

"That was Scott. He's excited about Stiles and Derek's baby."

"At this time of night you take a call from some guy about a baby? You sure you're not having an affair?" He jokes.

Allison gives Isaac a shove as she clamers off of the sofa.

"Isaac, if I thought you were having an affair everytime you took a midnight call from Erica I'd be gray."

He laughs and follows Allison back to their bedroom.


	9. Affair

It occurred innocently enough as the months wore on and things mended between Allison and Isaac. Scott, ever present through text and the occasional call was doing well in his new house and had found work quickly enough much to his wife's relief. 

Allison had begun to wonder more and more how anyone like Scott could possibly be real, to continuously give up home, work and peace in order to be there for his wife, full support not even a question.

Stiles insisted that it was ingrained in Scott's DNA that he was just an inherently good person who could never not lend a helping hand to anyone. 

It was an enviable quality and she had begun to attempt the same, assimilate these ideals and try to become a kinder person. It worked as the arguments died down the tense atmosphere dissipated and were no longer felt.

Maybe that's why it had started? 

Jennifer suspected, as she poured Allison a liberal amount of wine across her dinner table at four thirty in the morning, that this continual communication this attempted affirmation of friendship was the reason Allison had found herself in a seedy motel along the highway with Scott and had committed adultery for an entire weekend.

"Are you going to do it again?" Jennifer whispers, keeping her tone even as she steeples her fingers together. "I am not judging you, by the way. I just want to know what's going to happen."

"I don't know." Allison feels sick to her stomach, incredibly foolish and down right mean as she wonders, for the millionth time whether or not she can fully admit to not giving a damn about the consequences. "We we talking, I mean Scott called Thursday night and he was drunk. He said he'd gotten into a terrible fight with Kira-"

"His wife?"

"Yes his wife-" Allison hides her face in her hands,the shame coloring her features. "Oh God! She seems like such a nice person and I.... I..."

"Had a taudry affair with her husband this weekend? Look," Jennifer stands up and heads for the cabinet. "I want you to forget about Scott and his wife for a minute. I'm gonna get out the good stuff."

"Malia won't mind?"

"Considering the topic of conversation and how much it mimics my past marriage and affair with her? No, I doubt she'll do anything besides shove it down your throat."

That's right, Allison thinks as Jennifer pours nearly to the lip a stout glass of amber colored whiskey. Allison remembers how Jennifer and Malia had started out, how Jennifer and her ex husband Ennis had been happy yet bored in their marriages, how Ennis worked more and more...

"Tell me again how it happened maybe if I hear about your affair it might make mine...bearable?"

"Bearable? No, it's going to be bad either way but if you insist on some story time."

They made their way to the living room, too small for the expansive furniture but cozy. 

Allison forgets sometimes how Jennifer had previously lived in a larger and much more lavish house in the rich part of town. Allison wondered if she might have to part with her own large home.

How would she feel giving it all up?

"Do you ever regret it?" Allison asks as soon as they are both settled on the over plush sofa. She takes a sip, winces but welcomes the warm liquid as it travels down her throat and warms her belly. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine. Honestly? Sometimes I miss him. It's the oddest thing you know I don't love him, not the way I did in the beginning and I wouldn't give her up if my life depended on it but sometimes," Jennifer takes Allison's glass and takes a practiced sip. "Sometimes I miss when it was good."

"It was probably nothing anyway. I mean Scott and I barely spoke about what would happen after. Maybe I wont have to tell Isaac, maybe there's nothing to decide."

"Allison if that were true you wouldn't be here."

"It's not like you and Malia."

"Isn't it? I mean not exactly but key things are the same."

 Before Jennifer came to work for Lydia she had been married to a man named Ennis Dwight. Allison doesn't know all the details of their marriage but from what little she knows is that in the early years during his surgical residency Ennis had an affair with an old flame of Jennifer's who happened to be a nurse at his hospital.

Jennifer never used his affair with Kali as an excuse for her own affair but Allison had always quietly assumed she might have thought of it that way in order to lessen her guilt.

Jennifer had been a high school English teacher when it happened. She said that the attraction was instantaneous but quickly rebuked any accusations that anything beyond flirtation happened before the summer. 

When the affair began Malia had already graduated, was eighteen and had come to Jennifer on her own.

"It was just sex for a long time until it wasn't." Jennifer leaned back against the sofa. "By the time I realized that my marriage was over Ennis had found us out and tried to make it work."

"But it was over?"

"It was over. I mean I did the marriage counseling and I broke it off with Malia. Two years of trying to make it work for nothing." She gives Allison a look. "Your going to have to ask yourself whether or not you're happy where you are. You're going to have to ask yourself whether or not you love Isaac the way you should or if you're holding on to the concept of marriage with him because you're stubborn."

"But Scott-"

"Are you in love with Scott? Is this thing with him real and are you willing to be hurtful and cruel to Isaac and Scott's wife to be happy? The thing is Allison, you're not happy because if you were you would have never escaped from your marriage to spend a weekend with an old flame."

"I don't know."

Allison knows that she has to talk to Scott that she has to ask him what he thinks and feels even if she knows now that her relationship with Isaac isn't as sound as she was trying to make it, that maybe she might not want to be with him anymore that it really has nothing to do with what Scott is thinking or feeling. 

Maybe men and women are different that way. Maybe Scott just needed to be with someone else and that having sex with Allison was just a momentary lapse of judgement that he needed. Maybe this is what Allison was thinking. The point of it all was that it didn't really matter what Scott thought.

Allison would like to say that if she decided to leave Isaac that Scott would be there, that he would be willing to leave his wife and be with her. That maybe hurting Isaac was worth it if Allison could be happy.

But it didn't ultimately matter. In the end it was all up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nighttimemachinery on tumblr made a really cute Jennifer/Malia gifset that would not leave me alone which worked out pretty well. Next chapter will be a flash back.


	10. The Flashback

Jennifer decided that Allison would spend the night and all of the next day over to have time to herself. Isaac was out of town for the next few days so it wasn't like he would notice her absence.

"Just a day away from the house to think." Jennifer had said as she grabbed her keys and purse, Malia milling around the door and pretending that she didn't know what happened in the early hours of the morning. 

"Okay."

"I mean it. Don't call Scott, do not call Isaac. You need time."

So, hours later Allison sits on Jennifer's back porch drinking. Allison is fond of this pass time, of lazing about and being empty. 

She has to make up her mind, maybe not today but eventually and the thought of not coming out on top is shockingly okay. Scott doesn't ever have to leave Kira. Scott is irrelevant to the decision making process while Isaac has to be at the forefront of it. 

In the end it isn't Scott's choice but Allison's. Does she want to be with Scott? Allison isn't sure. Scott is familiar and warm and has nothing to do with the hardships she's faced in the past few years in the way that Isaac is. 

No, Scott doesn't factor. 

What transpired during the weekend was good, great in a way Allison hadn't experienced in years. 

Having sex with Isaac was good, always. She enjoyed his routines, enjoyed that he knew her body so well that he could have her panting time and time again _blindfolded_.

But Scott was new and old, the first clumsy experience she'd ever had back before she knew what good was.

Now, years later he'd become surer, his strokes deeper, his grasps firmer, his mouth wicked on the insides of her thighs, stubble rasping her flesh.

And just this once, Allison thought with self internalized hatred, just for the hell of it I decided not to care.

Against the wall, on the motels orange shag carpet, in the tiny shower.

Over and over on the bed in positions she hadn't used in years, Allison hadn't given a damn about Isaac or Kira.

Or the babies she wouldn't have and the one she lost.

But now that she'd left the fog that hindered her better judgement all she can do is care.

Scott had called Friday night to tell her that he was in a motel in the outskirts of town. 

Why?

Because of a fight with Kira, not about her father this time but about sex.

* * *

"I haven't touched her in months. I get that things with her dad are hard, I understand that but I miss her. I miss my wife." 

 "Hey, it's okay-"

"I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like we're just pleasantly coexisting and leaning on eachother in a way that is entirely too platonic." He groans on the line and Allison distantly hears a truck horn.

"Where are you?"

"The motel six just outside of Beacon Hills."

"The one next to Helen's Kitchen?"

"The one and the same. Remember when we up here? I swear I could eat at Helen's forever."

Allison fumbles with her shoes and reaches for her keys and purse, laughs as she remembers prom years ago. She'd been made prom queen to the shock of everyone, apart from Lydia who'd decided to drop all bimbo preteses deciding to concentrate on academics more than popularity.

Allison had danced with Jackson Whittemore, prom King, and had then ditched the rest of the dance to sneak off with Scott. It wasn't because she couldn't wait to be alone with him for an entire weekend but because she knew she would be ending it on graduation.

Helen's Kitchen looked like a rundown diner straight out of the eighties but the food was the best she'd ever had.

"Did you leave your wife, Scott?"

"I don't know."

* * *

She polishes off her drink with a wince and heads back inside, setting the glass in the sink. A pack of cigarettes had been left on the counter by the stove with a lighter and Allison hasn't smoked since she was in her early twenties but damn, if she isn't tempted.

She takes the pack, takes the glass she'd left in the sink and the whiskey from the cabinet and heads back outside, deeper into the small backyard towards a rickety hammock. 

She doesn't cough when she lights up and she inhales deeply, welcoming an old friend. 

She thinks hilariously of what Isaac would say about his wife spending an entire day drinking and smoking but decides to dispel the thought.

Because this is a great way to end three in a half days worth of debauchery.

She leans back, a foot firmly on the ground, she pushes back on it for some small bit of momentum, to swing somewhat idly. She pulls her leg up and looks up into the sky and feels her guilt fester in her chest with the smoke and imagines the release when she exhales in twin streams through her nostrils.

Scott smokes, Allison says in a whisper. 

* * *

She remembers the first night in that motel, sore and well used between her legs, creamy thighs pinked by his stubble, jaw sore from ove use. Everything that was Allison was pleasantly sore, as she looked at Scott's powerful dark back littered in scratches- 

_"Scott, she"ll know."_

_"I don't care!"_

-love bites on his shoulders, hair a mess from being pulled so viciously. He sat naked at the end of the bed smoking a cigarette, head bent downward as he checked his phone which he tossed with a snarl ontop of a heap of clothes on the ground.

He turned toward her and crawled back up the bed, cigarette hanging off his kiss swelled lips looking incredibly sexy as his black eyes smouldered. When he was fully over her, settled in the v of her thighs he dragged and then plucked the cigarette from his lips, exhaled a great plume of blackening smoke above their heads and pressed his lips to hers.

And again it started, hard, coming painfully too much too fast, tasting like smoke.

* * *

Sensuality aside, there were interludes where conversation dominated the hour, and like their day in Paris Allison found Scott a comforting presence and hoped she could be the same to him. 

They didn't touch upon the fact that what they were doing was wrong and Allison could appreciate the steady gaze in Scott's eyes that told her that nothing would change the way he saw her.

She pulled again, a long drag that burned her insides at the thought. For one weekend she felt cherished in a way she'd become unused to and for a moment she entertained the thought of Isaac. 

Would she have felt that beautiful had she spent a spontaneous weekend with her husband?

Isaac would have given in to her whims and treated their intimacy in the practiced routine carefully and lovingly crafted after years of sleeping with the same woman and while Allison loved her husband sometimes, she thought with a bitter and vicious sense of frustration, she just wanted to be fucked by someone who wanted her deeply and unabashedly riled up too much to be gentle. 

By someone who didn't need plans A through B to get her off just to get some sleep, who would talk to her afterward and tell her how much he wanted her.

It makes her angry to be angry at Isaac for something she doesn't have the nerves to explain, because she does love him and she does cherish him and damn her for not being more faithful to him.

* * *

"Kira's mother decided to place Ken in an assisted living facility in Seattle." Scott says into Allison's colar bone, worries the flesh with his teeth before kissing the aggravated skin. "That was a week ago."

"You didn't mention anything." Allison cards her fingers through his thick black hair. "She didn't take it well."

"I thought she had but....she blames me for it because I left the brochures on the counter because I talked to Noshiko. Because Ken couldn't remember Kira or the fact that he was married to Noshiko and got violent when we had to explain that he was sick and that his first wife had left him in 87."

 His hand grazes her breast, plucks at her nipple until the rosy bud pinks and becomes erect. He doesn't seem to do it out of any sexual need, he does it because his hands shake and he needs to fiddle with something. 

Allison controls her breathing, feels him soft, still inside her and tries not to contract her muscles as he continues to speak.

"When she seemed to calm down... It was our anniversary and I went all-out. I took her to dinner, there was dancing, flowers. I told her I loved her that she was beautiful that I was grateful that things were getting better. When we got home that night I kissed her deeply and she..." He hugs Allison tightly. 

"She what?"

"She pushed me away, said she was still angry and that she couldn't possibly have sex while her dad was having a bad week. It's been eighteen months and my wife won't sleep with me."

Allison doesn't react as Scott's hold on her tightens, as he sobs into her neck because he feels guilty for cheating, because he thinks that he convinced Allison to do the same. 

He wonders why he's even married at all when all he wants to do, most days, is fantasize about buying himself a one way ticket and spending the rest of his life living in the apartment above Stiles restaurant. 

"Is that what you want?"

"Honestly?" He tips his head, chin resting in the valley between her small beasts, eyes uncertain. "I don't know."

* * *

Allison pitches the cherry of her cigarette, finishes her drink and heads for the house. Maybe she'll feel more like herself after a nap.

 

 

 

 


	11. Scott & Kira

Kira hasn't said a word and Scott doesn't know whether to be grateful or terrified of the silence. He hasn't said where he's been and Kira doesn't ask but he feels like she knows what he's done. Noshiko and Ken are gone, Scott knows that much when he gets home and sees the door to the office that Noshiko used was now empty.

Kira washes dishes silently at the sink and Scott stands at the kitchen entryway watching her back, her hair in a messy bun at the crown of her head, loose sundress, bare feet. 

He knows that Kira is tired and angry and while he knows that he is inexscusably at fault a part of Scott is angry too. 

For years Scott has been the happily doting husband who gave up more than he wanted just to be supportive. Kira never became mean, was always grateful and just as loving but eventually forgot about her husband. Scott can understand, can sympathize with Kira and what Ken's condition has done to the family.

But eighteen months, from the day Scott pulled Kira and her mother aside to talk about options and long term care, Kira hadn't allowed Scott to touch her. 

He doesn't want to accuse Kira of being childish or petty and sex isn't an excuse for what he's done but intimacy was important and Kira had severed the connection between them and continued to expect so much from Scott without question.

It's a confusing feeling, meeting Allison again and talking to her. Kira had noticed and smiled happily because Scott had found an old friend and _she seems lovely and very nice Scott._

He's such a bastard.

Touching her, kissing her.... Scott never planned to sleep with Allison no matter what Stiles thought upon hearing the entire story. Scott called Allison in a panic. 

He'd just walked out on his wife. He'd never argued with her like that before. Allison had come to the motel to talk to listen to what he had to say. They talked, went to the small diner that hadn't changed since they'd been there last. 

Everything was pleasantly nostalgic and for just a moment he was eighteen again sitting across from the first girl he'd ever loved. Something warm had seemed to spread through his chest, everything was so easy back then.

Sex happened naturally between them from one breath to the next. It was hard, passionate and angry. Aggression towards their spouses, toward themselves. Over and over again. Scott didn't care at the time about the scratches or bites, but standing in the entryway of his kitchen he wasn't entirely sure. 

"Are you back for good or are you going to leave again?" Kira doesn't turn around to face him. The flow of water has stopped and she's watching his reflection through the window in front of the sink.

"We need to talk."

"That's obvious. You were gone all weekend. I called Stiles and Derek and Derek said to give you space. Stiles called us idiots. Are you really this upset because I wouldn't have sex with you?"

"Can you turn around?"

"No. No I can't turn around because my husband went and fucked off for a weekend to breathe and my parents are gone and now everything I've given up has been for nothing."

"You've given up?" Scott steps into the kitchen, leans his hip against the dining table. What comes out of his mouth is all his anger, all of his frustration. "You stopped teaching years ago, Kira. I gave up my business. Do you have an inkling of an idea of how hard it is to pick up and move every few months, to quit good jobs you've just found just because your wife wants to see another specialist?"

"You might have said something." Kira stubbornly stays put.

"And say what? That I don't want to move? That I'm tired of putting my marriage on the backburner?"

 And maybe it's because she refuses to look at him that Scott bravely pushes on. 

"I slept with someone."

Kira says nothing, doesn't move or straighten her somewhat hunched posture. She looks as defeated as Scott feels.

"I didn't intend for this to happen, you have to know that but..." But what? Scott clears his throat and wishes he didn't have to hurt her. Scott wishes he could save Kira from this, that he could take it back.

 "Kira, a year ago this would have never happened and I'm sorry that it did. I love you but I can't I can't be ignored, like something you put off to take care of when you absolutely have to. It's not about sex but it is and it isn't about not loving eachother anymore. But it is. I think that we started out great and for a while after your dad was diagnosed we were still going strong."

"Scott..."

"You just stopped seeing me and that's okay. They're your parents and they needed you and I love you and you don't ever have to forgive me, because I don't forgive you either."

She calls out to him when he walks out of the kitchen but doesn't move to follow him when he packs a duffle bag with some clothes. He does stop to tell her that he'll be back for the rest of his things but he doesn't try to look at her. 

Scott's afraid that he'll go back to her. It's a kind gesture and Scott isn't in the mood to be kind anymore. Scott thought he might want to make it work and on the long drive home Stiles had insisted upon Scott not telling her.

The moment he was in the house, the moment she'd refused to look at him was the moment Scott realized that he was done with the relationship entirely. 

Later, when he's back at the motel, laying back smoking a cigarette, he thinks back. 

All those little moments in a relationship form to make something big something unforgettable. Scott will never regret meeting and falling in love with Kira. He will never regret marrying her but, he will always regret failing her with his passivity. 

Lydia texts him, calling him an idiot. 

Stile had listened intently while Scott had told him everything. Derek had taken the phone and had told Scott that if leaving felt like the right thing to do that he would be supportive.

He stares at Allison's number but doesn't call.


	12. Kira

Kira knows she's screwed up when she hears Scott's car disaper down the long driveway. She feels like a coward because she hadn't the courage to stop him from leaving. 

She's more disappointed than angry and she takes a moment to think. Yes, Scott had cheated with some unknown woman. Yes, Kira hasn't been an actual wife in a long time. Their lives were together but emotionally they grew apart.

For a satisfyingly terrible moment Kira is glad Scott cheated for the simple fact that she could blame him for the ruining of their marriage but if she steps back to review the evidence, to review everything? No, Scott cheating was not the reason they had to be over. 

The reason they had to end was because they hadn't been anything to one another in a long time. Kira's father became sick and Kira went head first into taking care of him and being there for her mother.

But it wasn't all on Kira. Scott never spoke up, never put his foot down. That was another reason. _So many little things_ , Kira thought around the lip of her glass, _put them all together and what do you get?_

A broken marriage. A good man doing something so completely cruel out of desperation. A good woman ignoring her needs her wants and casting her husband aside.

For a heartbreaking moment Lydia came to mind. Was it Lydia that Scott had spent the night with? She laughs at herself, because there is no way Lydia would ever do anything behind anyone's back. 

The thought of Lydia having an affair with anyone's husband was hilarious. If it were Lydia that Scott had slept with the woman would have called Kira herself to explain the situation. 

You fucked up. Your marriage is obviously over.

But Kira had called Lydia, feeling awkward. Lydia had been surprised, shocked and to the point. Scott wouldn't do something so cruel unless he felt like there was nothing to lose. Was Kira alright with letting him go?

Infinitely calm, Kira finished her drink and began packing Scott's things away. A quick drive to the store, Kira purchased plastic bags, duct tape and plastic bins. She ordered pizza, had more beer and started to pack.

His clothes were easier dealt with than his books, which were placed in the bin. His movies, Knick knacks and other odds and ends were surprisingly fast to deal with. It was cathartic, she felt relieved to pack away all of Scott's things.

She hauled his belongings to the livingroom and left them there.

"What else?"

Kira doesn't let herself look at the pictures as she packs them away, these she decides, will go into an empty bin into the garage. 

 It takes her less time than she imagined to deconstruct and remove her husband and herself from their marriage. It feels weightless and good and terrible and horrible all at once. Should she cry?

No. 

This, she decides that no one is to blame. The fact that she hates Scott right now must be normal. The fact that he'd pissed all over their vows to one another especially during such hardship makes her blood boil. 

There's a dim satisfaction in the fact that divorce means being rid of her cheating soon to be ex-husband. So what that she was distant? Her parents needed her. Did she complain about Melissa being sick, taking the time with Scott away? 

She certainly had never thought of having sex with anyone else.

Oh God, she groans, too drunk and full of pizza to stand, how many other women had Scott been with? Was this woman different from the others? She'd certainly given him the stones to come clean.

Kira lays back, stares at the ceiling from her carpet hating the unknown woman, hating herself and above all hating Scott for telling her.

 


	13. Two years

 

Two years ago Allison had an affair with an old flame from highschool and hasn't heard from him since.

Through the grapevine she's gathered that Scott and Kira divorced, Kira remarried approximately six months later to some guy named Liam and Scott had left California for Florida.

He hasn't been heard of since or, rather Stiles explicitly stated that he would tell Allison nothing of Scott until she decided to leave Isaac.

'It wouldn't be fair,' Stiles had whispered harshly over the phone, the sound of Amelia gurgling loudly through the speaker. 'I know Scott. You know Scott. He won't be able talk to you without feeling guilty about your husband and then he'll call me and I'll feel bad right along with him.'

Stiles had been so sure that she would leave Isaac and Jennifer had agreed wholeheartedly.

If Allison was unhappy or unsure or bored with her marriage then why remain in it?

Why decide to force something that was obviously over?

Jennifer understood more than anyone about what it was like to live in an unhappy marriage but Allison had made her decision. She wanted to try to make it work.

So Isaac announcing his affair over the table, quietly as to not make a scene in the crowded restaurant, had blindsided her completely. He looked apologetic, his face lined with worry and regret.

Allison wanted to laugh, to cry and make a scene but refrained. Karma stung, her blood boiled. 

She finished her wine and glanced up at him through her lashes, she wondered if he regretted the affair or if he were relieved that it was out in the open. 

So she asks Isaac about it.

How long?

"Two years."

Do you love her?

"I'm...no. No it was a mistake."

Do you want to leave me?

"God no. No, baby no." 

She flushes with shame, regret and hatred as Isaac grasps for her hand across the table. She asks him why he's told her about it in the first place, if he wasn't going to leave her.

"She's pregnant."

Allison doesn't register the slew of apologies or feel the grasp of his hand tighten. The baby that Isaac was having, the baby he'd denied Allison was given to some other woman.

She's back, suddenly thrust back in time staring mournfully into the bloodied toilet at the dead thing she'd wanted so much.

She pulls her hand out of Isaac's grasp and doesn't care that he calls out to her making a scene. 

Isaac was having a baby.

* * *

 

Allison doesn't register anything for days after she'd had the locks changed and had, embarrassingly thrown Isaac's belongings onto the front porch.

She dodges calls, tells Lydia that she's sick and cries so much she thinks she's going to die. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Isaac's confession coincided with Boyd and Erica's split a little too closely not to be connected.

As Allison pulls the sheets over her head she wonders if Boyd is doing better than she is. It can't be easy to lose your wife to your best friend.

She ignores the pounding at the door and let's herself fade in and out of sleep. The last time she'd opened the door Erica had been on the other side, her blouse accentuating the soft curve of her belly. Her mouth had opened, to apologize surely, but Allison had slammed the door feeling thoroughly vindictive.

Now Allison feels hollow. She'd done the same thing to Kira, she broke up a marriage only Allison has nothing to show for it. She doesn't have a baby and soon she won't have a house. Everything is too much, too real.

The banging stops and she drifts off as her bedroom door creaks opened. Either Lydia, Jennifer or Isaac had managed to get inside.

It doesn't matter.

 


	14. Now what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. A broken hand will do that to you. Next bit of updates will be sporadic but will come. I was having a bit of trouble with where to take this but now I know exactly where it's gonna end. Be patient with me please. These chapters weren't beta'd and were supper short but I promise futer chapters will be longer.

It's surprisingly easy for Derek to sneak away from Stiles when Amelia is such an adorable distraction. Her curling brown hair and wide brown eyes shine. She laughs so hard her face turns bright pink as Stiles blows another rasberry on her soft belly.

It's chilly on the balcony but Derek finds himself completely immersed with Lydia over the phone, too into the topic of conversation to feel the cold. He leans against the railing.

Allison's husband had an affair that resulted in the woman's pregnancy, to add to Allison's woes, Lydia recounts the miscarriage Allison had gone through and her bouts of depression due to her apparent infertility. 

Lydia wants to maim the man, Derek isn't so sure that she should. There's pain because the situation is terrible but maybe there was a silver lining in there somewhere.

"Where? Allison's alone while that cheating bastard and his girlfriend have a baby. How is this good?"

* * *

The silver lining calls Derek, uncaring of the time difference and banging on someone's door. Derek sits up, phone pressed against his ear as he grumbles a curse. Trust Derek to be the one to hear the phone while Stiles sleeps peacefully unawares.

"What is it Scott?" Derek gets out of bed groggily, pulls on the nearest pair of boxers on the floor and scratches the flakey bits of ejaculate that had dried on his hairy chest. 

So much for enjoying his and Stiles baby free weekend.

"Allison isn't opening the door."

"So you called Stiles phone. Stiles who lives in _Paris_."

"I panicked." Scott says after a beat of silence then promptly hangs up. Derek stares at his phone, brow furrowing as Stiles snorts awake.

"Hey. Everything okay?"

Derek crawls back into bed, kicks his boxers off and burrows into Stiles chest, takes a deep rumbling breath, feels so lucky for boring domesticity.

"Everything's fine. It was just my silver lining being an idiot."

"What?"

* * *

 

Allison wakes up to strong arms around her and she panics because she knows this isn't Isaac, would know the feeling of his body anywhere. She looks down at the arms around her and lightly touches the dark skin.

"Scott?"

The body presses closer, lips at her ear and she wants to cry.

"Lydia called me." He hugs her tightly. "I'm so sorry."

She takes a deep breath, feels herself loosen in Scotgrasp before she turns and burrows into his muscular chest.

She feels like an idiot for two years ago because the burgeoning friendship they might have had ended when she refused to take his calls for the sake of being with Isaac who left her anyway.

"I'm glad you're here."

"Me too."


	15. Chapter 15

The sun hadn't risen, yet Scott felt compelled to get out of bed. He remembers passing the opened doors to a home office where there'd been a bar. So, intent on feeling something he decides to entertain himself there.

It's good whisky and even better scotch, he sits behind the large cherry wood desk in an impossibly comfortable leather chair and drinks cautiously. Allison had cried more about the baby her husband's mistress was having and seemed more upset about it rather than the ending to their marriage. 

She'd wanted babies so badly and Isaac hadn't. How terrible was it that the one that hated children was about to be saddled with a kid of his own? 

Scott figured that the marriage ending was irrelevant. The root of the issue was the baby that her husband was having with the other woman.

Okay, well Scott understood that much otherwise Allison wouldn't have slept with him. Her marriage had been on the rocks, she'd spent a weekend with him and never called afterwards. 

He topped off his drink and decided that now wasn't the time to pry and glean information from the devastated woman upstairs.

* * *

 Scott thinks about their lost weekend and wonders if maybe Allison regretted it. He's guilty of not caring enough and feels nothing in regards to Allison's husband. Scott's guilt centers around Allison and whether or not she felt guilt.

When they'd broken up Scott had been devistated and up until he'd met Kira he'd wondered whether or not if he'd just given up on trying. If he'd tried harder would Allison had taken him back?

If he tries now?

The thought lingers as a sound from upstairs pulls him from his musings. Now isn't the time to think about the past.

 


	16. Chapter 16

The divorce is rocky, obviously. No matter how much Allison might have wanted a clean break there was the house, the assets, the money and her sense of pride that needed dealing with.

Isaac wanted to be fair to her, and in the end he was. The money? Take it, there would always be more. The vacation house in the Hamptons? He didn't need it. 

The house that they'd lived in? He needed for his new family and of course Allison had fought him.

Allison had put too much into the house, had decorated rooms, toiled through the gardens on hands and knees. The nursery that was to have been the baby's that she'd lost?

She would rather burn the house down than have Erica's baby sleep in that crib or walk it's first steps in her home.

"She's not taking my house." Allisson said across the cherry wood table, hushed by her lawyer as she glared. "Take the house in the Hamptons. The condo in Miami I don't give a damn. Not my house!"

"Allison, you can't possibly imagine to live there on your own. I think I've been fair enough." He counted off. "The vacation house, the money, the cars. Erica just needs a place to-"

 "Not needs. _Wants_. She wants my house. My baby's nursery?"

"The baby died."

"I know. It died and you were too busy fucking your best friends wife to care."

 He cows under the pressure of course, feels like the perfect monster that he is and concedes. Yes, of course it would be in bad taste to take the house. 

Six months later Allison sells the house to a lovely couple at a ridiculously reasonable price. She hopes that Issac hears about it.

'Thats a steal.' Scott laughs over the phone. 'I wish that I can see the look on their faces!'

"Her ex-husband delivered a free box of my favorite pastries to my job. It was a good day." Allison unearths another Tupperware lid and shakes her head. "Where are all of these Tupperware lids coming from?"

Scott doesn't answer.

"Scott?"

'Her ex-husband. He good-looking?'

"Interested?"

'I'm jealous. I can't surprise you at work you know. I just really want to hold you.'

Scott was never quite so eloquent before, though Allison has to remind herself that the Scott she'd known in highschool had changed. The Scott after was loving, passionate and had ravaged her in a way that nearly hurt.

The day that Scott had driven to the house to keep her company he'd held her tenderly and hadn't touched her the way she knew he'd wanted. 

Now, however, months later and a state away all Allison can do is burn under the brilliant heat of his words.

"Scott..."

'You want it too, don't you?'

"Of course I do." Allison leans back against her new stove. The tiny kitchen of her condo feels suffocating suddenly. "I want you all the time."

'... I'm visiting Stiles dad this weekend so I'll be in town. Take Friday through Monday off.'

"I have work. Lydia won't like me taking off so much." Allison had taken so much time off work and she wondered how much longer Lydia would over look it.

'I don't give a damn about Lydia! Just...please...'

 

* * *

 


End file.
